The shortlisted artists were chosen by an international Selection Committee. The Open Group from Ukraine were nominated for the shortlist as winners of the PinchukArtCentre Prize 2015, a national contemporary art prize awarded to young Ukrainian artists up to the age of 35.

Daniela Castro, Chair of the Selection Committee, said: "The selection committee assessed a pool of thousands of applications submitted by young artists from all over the world. The difficulty of selecting just twenty practices from this list was not just because of the amount of work entailed in such an endeavor but by the excellence of each project we had to carefully look at. Merit was one of the many variants we considered in order to conduct a fair analysis: geography, gender, media also had their say. As such, we understand that the shortlisted artists for the Future Generation Art Prize are representatives of a wider landscape of outstanding art practices emerging throughout the world.

The Future Generation Art Prize established by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in 2009 is a worldwide contemporary art prize created to discover, recognise and give long-term support to a future generation of artists. Judged by a distinguished jury, the Prize with a cash value of $100,000, aims to make a major contribution to the careers of younger artists involved in the dynamic cultural development of societies in transition, many of whom have found it difficult to get their voices heard. The competition is open to all artists up to the age of 35 of all backgrounds, working in any medium, anywhere in the world.

An exhibition of the work of the twenty one shortlisted artists will go on show at the PinchukArtCentre in Kiev on 25 February  16 April 2017. The winner will be announced at an Award Ceremony in Kiev in March. The exhibition will be presented as an official collateral event at the Palazzo Contarini Polignac Venice Biennale opening on Thursday 11 May 2017.